D&D General What is player agency to you?

[EzekielRaiden]

If Gonad takes steps to anger and have a war of vengance against someone - let's imagine the whole scenario of Conan deciding he needs vengance against Thulsa Doom - you are exactly deciding who the villains of the story are. You're doing it with your agency and your words and actions - this is different than you saying 'Oh, of course I know the bartender. We went to school together'

Is it that different, though? I mean that. Is it really that different?

Because it seems to me that this is highly, highly comparable to the difference between running a single character 17 times until you finally get one that survives the early levels, vs playing 17 characters all at once and taking the single survivor as your "proper" character. That is, it's a mechanical contrivance, designed to reduce a sometimes-tedious burden, in order to increase the focus given to and time spent on a more desirable portion of the game.

Mechanical contrivance alone cannot be the problem, because D&D is riddled with those. HP and AC alone cover that--as Gygax himself pointed out years ago, HP are inherently unrealistic/ungrounded, involving something unphysical like "luck" or "divine favor," and we just sort of roll with it because they're too convenient not to. Reducing or simplifying tedium cannot be the problem, that's been the watchword for all of 5e's existence, anything even remotely looking like tedium must be destroyed with great prejudice no matter what other costs that might have. Amplifying focus on specific experiences or interests can't be the problem either, because many highly-beloved mechanics do that too. Heck, many overtly old-school mechanics do exactly that, e.g. XP=GP.

So I'm left asking, what exactly is the difference here? It isn't abstraction, mechanical contrivance, removal of ("realistic") tedium, nor amplifying focus. And it's not even that metanarrative concerns are unacceptable either! People are given plenty of free rein to invent backstory in games. Isn't that exactly what Conan has? Why should it just so happen that the bloodthirsty warlord who slaughtered his people would also be the snake-cultist sorcerer that has kidnapped the princess? Because it's a more interesting story that way--that's literally the one and only reason.

 

[CreamCloud0]

"I don't want to influence the world outside of my words and deeds. If I want to come up with lore or DECIDE WHO THE VILLAINS ARE..." (edit: the caps are for my emphasis) To me, those two sentences seem contradictory.

If Gonad takes steps to anger and have a war of vengance against someone - let's imagine the whole scenario of Conan deciding he needs vengance against Thulsa Doom - you are exactly deciding who the villains of the story are. You're doing it with your agency and your words and actions - this is different than you saying 'Oh, of course I know the bartender. We went to school together'

there's a difference between picking a fight with a known entity who already exists in the world driving them to become the villian and pulling the mask off the hooded big bad who's remained faceless until now and declaring scooby doo style "and that's why i knew the villian was none other than jack the innkeeper"

 

[Oofta]

While I agree generally with what you're saying, I don't know that this exactly is what the original post was talking about. Some of the early issues brought up were about note-taking for example or other non-immersive behaviors. Do you want your inhabiting Gonad the Barbarian to be judged by the DM you hardly know (since this is a summer ad hoc group) based on how much note-taking you the player are doing?

"I don't want to influence the world outside of my words and deeds. If I want to come up with lore or DECIDE WHO THE VILLAINS ARE..." (edit: the caps are for my emphasis) To me, those two sentences seem contradictory.

If Gonad takes steps to anger and have a war of vengance against someone - let's imagine the whole scenario of Conan deciding he needs vengance against Thulsa Doom - you are exactly deciding who the villains of the story are. You're doing it with your agency and your words and actions - this is different than you saying 'Oh, of course I know the bartender. We went to school together'

If my PC pisses someone off, then that NPC should react appropriately. What I'm talking about is when the player creates lore from scratch that gets added to the game. For example in DW (Dungeon World, a PbtA game) I listened to, the player made a successful a lore(?) check about a mysterious tower they were investigating. The player was then asked to describe who was haunting the tower and why. This was just one minor example, people were adding to the lore big and small on a regular basis.

I'm sure that works for a lot of people, it's just not what I want to do when I play an RPG. I don't want to both inhabit the world as my PC while simultaneously creating brand new world lore for NPCs. There's exceptions to every rule of course. For example I may add some NPC from my background now and then but that's more the DM asking about what a childhood friend was like.

I feel the friction comes from this side angle not being a piece of OP's lore, and the OP feeling you're not having a lore reason to do so. Factor in how we're generally seemed to reach consensus these people are playing in a space where they are the only gamers, and gaming with gamers you don't like may be the only gaming you're getting for the summer.

 

[Micah Sweet]

how much agency is beneficial is how much do the players care about their decisions mattering. I played in one game where I didn't have any agency. It was one of those stupid dark gritty the world is ending and the railroad did not bend. So me and the rest of the players decided we were hero's and we rufused to give up. We died, we rerolled, we died we rerolled till the DM gave up. We never accepted his view of how we were supposed to act. We refused to give up the agency he was attacking. Never forget no matter how much the DM tries, they can only take your agency if you are willing to let them. Just walking away from the game is agency. Agency can be surrendered it cannot be taken. many a game has blown up over the idea that agency was something the DM could just seize.

Why didn't you just tell the DM that you weren't interested in playing the game they wanted to run? What you described seems like either a gigantic waste of everyone's time or some kind of obscure punishment for the DM.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Well, I think the author of this thread might be the living example of why it's not a universally good idea! I'm not even sure its a 'default' anymore, given the huge proliferation of non-trad techniques and games. Even 5e kind of skirts around the whole question, though its design certainly has GM-only story as a default. Its sad really. I love D&D, but if it won't adapt, well...

Why should it adapt? There are plenty of other games out there, in every style of the rainbow.

 

[pemerton]

there's a difference between picking a fight with a known entity who already exists in the world driving them to become the villian and pulling the mask off the hooded big bad who's remained faceless until now and declaring scooby doo style "and that's why i knew the villian was none other than jack the innkeeper"

Is there a RPG you have in mind that works in the manner of what I've bolded?

People are given plenty of free rein to invent backstory in games. Isn't that exactly what Conan has? Why should it just so happen that the bloodthirsty warlord who slaughtered his people would also be the snake-cultist sorcerer that has kidnapped the princess? Because it's a more interesting story that way--that's literally the one and only reason.

Shush, don't you know we're not aloud to talk about contrivances in the shared fiction?!

 

[Micah Sweet]

Is it that different, though? I mean that. Is it really that different?

Because it seems to me that this is highly, highly comparable to the difference between running a single character 17 times until you finally get one that survives the early levels, vs playing 17 characters all at once and taking the single survivor as your "proper" character. That is, it's a mechanical contrivance, designed to reduce a sometimes-tedious burden, in order to increase the focus given to and time spent on a more desirable portion of the game.

Mechanical contrivance alone cannot be the problem, because D&D is riddled with those. HP and AC alone cover that--as Gygax himself pointed out years ago, HP are inherently unrealistic/ungrounded, involving something unphysical like "luck" or "divine favor," and we just sort of roll with it because they're too convenient not to. Reducing or simplifying tedium cannot be the problem, that's been the watchword for all of 5e's existence, anything even remotely looking like tedium must be destroyed with great prejudice no matter what other costs that might have. Amplifying focus on specific experiences or interests can't be the problem either, because many highly-beloved mechanics do that too. Heck, many overtly old-school mechanics do exactly that, e.g. XP=GP.

So I'm left asking, what exactly is the difference here? It isn't abstraction, mechanical contrivance, removal of ("realistic") tedium, nor amplifying focus. And it's not even that metanarrative concerns are unacceptable either! People are given plenty of free rein to invent backstory in games. Isn't that exactly what Conan has? Why should it just so happen that the bloodthirsty warlord who slaughtered his people would also be the snake-cultist sorcerer that has kidnapped the princess? Because it's a more interesting story that way--that's literally the one and only reason.

Not a reason I ever want to use, really.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Not a reason I ever want to use, really.

So you never do anything as a DM because it would enhance the story experience, and you never write backstory for your character in order to experience a better story?

 

[Micah Sweet]

So you never do anything as a DM because it would enhance the story experience, and you never write backstory for your character in order to experience a better story?

Not never (nobody's perfect), but I do try to avoid it, on both sides, most of the time.

 

[bloodtide]

I feel the friction comes from this side angle not being a piece of OP's lore, and the OP feeling you're not having a lore reason to do so. Factor in how we're generally seemed to reach consensus these people are playing in a space where they are the only gamers, and gaming with gamers you don't like may be the only gaming you're getting for the summer.

There is the friction between my style and the other games.

Not only are they the type that like the game where "the DM is my fan/best buddy". They are VERY used to just not paying attention, goofing off, wandering away from the table or being on their phones for half of the game...or more. So they will often say "get an important call" then leave the game table to go outside and talk....then run back in as soon as they see combat starting. Then their fan/buddy DM will give them a quick 'update' of everything they missed and the player will take some random action. And if the random action is dumb, stupid or unwise the DM will "save" the character with something like "oh, best bud, you can't go north there is a wall of fire there.." And the player will say "thanks DM...I did not know that as I was not her at the table playing the game for the last half hour...yuck yuck yuck".

And......my game is: "If you get up to take that phone call, your leaving the game for the whole summer." So.....you can see a big difference.

there's a difference between picking a fight with a known entity who already exists in the world driving them to become the villian and pulling the mask off the hooded big bad who's remained faceless until now and declaring scooby doo style "and that's why i knew the villian was none other than jack the innkeeper"

I'm not sure this applies. None of the "new to me" players have any real detailed back story or drama. These are just summer games, not massive self insert ego stroking easy button adventure for "that" type of player.

Is there a RPG you have in mind that works in the manner of what I've bolded?

Well.....dare I say........Bubblegumshoe